The National Black Justice Coalition, an ad hoc consortium of Black lesbian, gay,bisexual, and transgender community leaders, this week announced a nationwidecampaign to generate Black support for marriage equality and to fight against therecently proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which would change the U.S.Constitution to allow discrimination against gays and lesbians. The group alsocalled on all Black civil-rights organizations and political leaders to take a strongposition against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
‘The right-wing fired the first shots in this battle, but today we fire back,’ said Coalition member Donna Payne. ‘We will not allow the out-of-touch radical right to divide the Black community on this issue,’ she added.
‘African Americans support civil rights for all Americans,’ said Coalition member Keith Boykin, ‘and our judgment will not be clouded by the smoke and mirrors of a few vocal opponents.’
To generate support for their effort, the Coalition today launched a major national campaign that will include raising and spending $100,000 for targeted advertisement in the Black media, developing a new Web site to counter right-wing misinformation about Blacks and same-sex marriage, and holding future press conferences to announce new supporters of the campaign.
The coalition announced the support of Coretta Scott King, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, Rev. Al Sharpton, Whoopi Goldberg and other key African American public figures who have come out in favor of marriage equality.
E-mail: NBJCoalition@aol.com.